Phil,
>Am I right that the timescale is set by the average lag of wage
>payments behind hiring?
There is a lag distribution between being hired and getting paid, but this
isn't what calibrates the time-scale, at least in my mind. A "month" is
defined as N random selections from the set of N economic actors. This means
that, on average, each actor acts once in each month. If an employer is
selected, then workers get paid. So workers get paid on average once a
month. Profits, GDP etc. are then measured every 12 such months.
>There is no constant capital. Wages are paid in arrears, after
>revenue is received , therefore there is no variable capital. How
>then can there be any capital? One possibility is that there is
>commodity capital which builds up during the month. At the end of
>the month it will have built up to equal the revenue amount. Nothing to do
>with wages.
Wages are not paid in arrears after revenue is received. Within a month a
firm can be selected and pay wages prior to receiving revenue. Or the firm
may receive some revenue, at a later point pay wages, and then still later
receive some more revenue, all in the same month. The model abstracts from
commodity capital, but I think it might support the interpretation you give
it. But I don't understand why you think there are no wages.
>On page 24 you quote an average profit rate of 80.5%. This seems to
>be a monthly rate. Is the annual rate then of the order of 1000%?
It's a yearly rate, and perhaps better interpreted as the rate of surplus
value, although I have hesitated over this, wishing to think about it more.
The more important aspect is the shape of the profit distribution, rather
than the actual figure.
>I can only echo what Paul said: it would be very interesting to know
>what the 55/45 wage share to profit share ratio depends on, i.e. what do
>you vary to make it change?
It ultimately depends on the average wage, although I have not
systematically explored the parameter-space. I chose the average wage that
gave me the closest qualitative and quantitative agreement with the
empirical data. Many more questions can be asked of this model, but I
haven't had time to work on it further. (The model is specified in
sufficient detail for others to implement and experiment with it. It would
only take a handful of days to code. Most of the work is handling the large
amounts of data).
Thanks for taking the time to read it, and your kind comments.
ATB,
-Ian.
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